Curriculum Information

NEW NATIONAL CURRICULUM

In September 2014 the Department for Education (DfE) introduced a new National Curriculum which affects what we teach your children in our school. Early Years (or Reception) have their own curriculum and children in Years 1,3,4 and 5 have been following the new National Curriculum since the start of the year. For the 2014/2015 academic years the DfE has expected children in Year 2 and Year 6 to follow the old curriculum as this curriculum is covered by the Key Stage 1(KS1) and Key Stage 2 (KS2) tests in the summer term. However from the 2015/2016 academic year all children from Year 1 to Year 6 will use the new National Curriculum.

The new National Curriculum covers the majority of teaching in our school. It is essential to distinguish between the statutory National Curriculum and the whole school curriculum. All schools must provide a curriculum that is ‘broadly based, balanced and meets the needs of all pupils’.

All schools must teach religious education at all key stages although PSHCE and RE are not covered in this document. These areas of the curriculum provide a good opportunity to teach the children about the British Values which are so important to our society. We also hold an act of daily worship or reflection through our assemblies, as is expected.

Assessing the National curriculum

As well as changes to the National Curriculum there have been changes to how we assess children’s learning. The Government has not given any specific assessment levels so schools now have greater curriculum ‘freedom’. This means that schools will be able to choose their own formative or ongoing assessment method and are not tied to assessment using the language of ‘levels’ which you may be familiar with. There will be no nationally agreed way of doing this but as we move forward our Multi Academy Trust (MAT) will be developing a system that can be used in all of our schools.

Currently we are assessing our children in three ways. In Early Years the children are assessed against the Early Learning Goals, in Year 2 and 6 the children continue to be assessed using levelled tests and information from teachers about work in class. In the other years the teachers will use the new National Curriculum to assess whether each child is working below, at or above the level expected of their age group. For the most children this will mean that whatever year group they are in they will be at the expected level.

A new word that you might come across is called ‘mastery’. This means that the children are expected to be able to broaden their knowledge of skills from within the curriculum for their year groups. You may see this when they show that they can apply their skills across the curriculum rather than just in one area such as maths.

General Changes to the curriculum

One of the first changes that you might see is that the term ‘Literacy’ has been replaced by the term ‘English’. In Maths there will be greater rigour with a greater emphasis on arithmetic and the promotion of efficient written methods of long multiplication and division. There is also more demanding content in fractions, decimals and percentages.

In Science there is a stronger focus on the importance of scientific knowledge and language and a greater emphasis on the core scientific concepts underpinning pupils’ understanding. For the first time primary aged children will learn about evolution and inheritance.

The proposed English programmes of study will have higher standards of literacy. Pupils are expected to develop a stronger command of the written and spoken word. Through the strengthening of the teaching of phonics pupils will be helped to read fluently. We have continued to use Read Write Inc scheme to teach phonics as this programme covers the new National Curriculum.

The study of languages is compulsory in Key Stage 2 which we have been teaching. Also, the current ICT curriculum has a new computing curriculum with a much greater emphasis on computational thinking and practical programming skills.